At The ComiCon

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Story © Ellie Dauber 1999

This story is a payback for somebody who did me a favor, and who also helped with the editing of this story. (Guess who.) Since others have been posting stories featuring the List members....

Elsbeth Lange looked over the San Diego ComiCon from the vantage point of one of the private Convention Center offices. Her Great Aunt Miranda, Head of the Grand Coven, lived in the San Diego area. Aunt Miranda was one of those people who knew everybody, and it took no more than a phone call to get her favorite niece into the office.

*****

"I don't know why you want to go there," Aunt Miranda snorted. "Too many of them are into that 'New Wave' nonsense that they think our Way is like."

"I know," Elsbeth said. "And a lot of them are technogeeks, who wouldn't believe in real magic if you rubbed their noses in it."

"I know. They'd probably quote that stupid line of your cousin, Arthur's, about 'advanced technology being indistinguishable...' and all that."

"When I saw him in Sri Lanka last month, he told me how much of a giggle it is to hear that thing quoted as often as it is. If people only knew."

"You still haven't answered my question. Why do you want to go there?"

"A favor for a friend." Aunt Miranda nodded. That was enough of an explanation for a great many things.

*****

Elsbeth spotted her quarry at once. He was down at one of the DC Comics booths checking out the newest issues. There were a good dozen fans dressed up as Catwoman, and not all of them were female. His costume wasn't bad from this distance, over a hundred feet out onto the Exhibit Hall floor and some forty feet below the level of the window. Elsbeth was glad that she'd used the "linking" spell. Otherwise, it would have been a lot harder to figure out which Catwoman Steve was.

The "link" spell didn't require physical contact, just direct or indirect mental contact. She'd logged on to that Fictionmania site and read a number of his stories. He was a good enough writer that she could catch traces of his personality in the stories -- not a lot, there never were in a story -- but enough to use the spell.

She had to admit, though, that they weren't bad stories. Not the sort of stuff that she usually read, but interesting.

She left the office and headed down to the Convention floor. Aunt Miranda's influence had gotten her a "Convention Center Special Pass" so she could get into the offices. (Her convention membership badge was in her purse.) She showed the pass to the convention security gophers and the three kids working Registration. Nobody tried to stop her from going in.

One of the security gophers did offer to escort her. He wasn't bad looking, about 25 and tall, with reddish brown hair. Elsbeth sensed his lust and magically re-directed it to the one woman working at Registration. She was a slender girl in her early twenties who, Elsbeth thought, was far too good looking to have the terrible self-image problem that Elsbeth had sensed in her.

Elsbeth watched him go over and introduce himself. The girl, Lori, was a little flustered, but she accepted his invitation to join him for a soda when their shifts were over. If the girl were as smart as she looked behind those terrible black plastic framed glasses, she'd fix her self up a little and enjoy the con with her new friend. Elsbeth smiled at her quick effort at matchmaking and headed into the Dealer's area.

Steve had moved on from the DC table, but a "link" spell, well, it "links". As long as it was in operation, Elsbeth would know exactly where he was.

She found him looking at some "Golden Age" comics from the 1940s. The prices were still amazing to her, a reader but generally a non-collector. Did dealers really expect to get $10 or $20 thousand or even more for those old books? Evidently so, judging from the way people were looking at the titles and the prices and sighing in frustration.

As she came near Steve, she got a good look at the costume. It wasn't a bad effort. He wore a purplish body suit with black boots and gloves and a purple mask and cowl. A wig of wild black curls stuck out from the bottom of the mask and flowed halfway down his back. The corseting and padding were obvious to an expert, but he'd done a fair job of using them to convert his masculine build to a more feminine shape. He didn't seem quite as tall as Elsbeth thought the "real" Catwoman should be, and he had none of her voluptuous femininity. For that matter, most real women didn't have it either.

And when he wasn't paying attention, he walked like a man.

Elsbeth reached out and tapped him on the shoulder. "Excuse me. Are you Steve Zink?"

He turned and looked surprised -- and a little disappointed. This had been the best Catwoman costume he'd done yet. But this woman had recognized him as if he were in his street clothes -- or wearing a name badge. No, he'd attached his to the purse he was carrying, and it hung down so that nobody over three feet tall could read it.

"Who...." He stopped and looked at the woman who had guessed his identity. He'd never seen her before, though he wished he had. She was gorgeous, about thirty, with long blonde hair almost to her waist and a set of curves that her expensive navy dress seemed to highlight rather than conceal.

Elsbeth smiled, recognizing his curiosity and confusion. And his lust. "Can we go to some private corner of the floor and discuss something?"

"I guess. But how did you know who I am?"

"I'll explain everything as soon as we get to someplace a little more private than a central aisle."

Steve led her to a display area that was still waiting to be set up. They walked behind one of the punchboard walls and were out of sight of the rest of the hall. He turned to Elsbeth and asked again who she was.

"My name is Elsbeth Lange. My friend, Ellie Dauber's, written up a couple of my adventures on that Fictionmania site."

"Right. You're Elsbeth Lange, the witch from Ellie's stories."

"We prefer Wiccan, thank you, Steve. Ellie's an old friend. We met at Miskatonic University. We both pledged to the cyberprep sorority, Nu Psi Phi, and roomed together out senior year. Ellie asked if she could write up a couple of the thing that I've done, and I agreed."

"C'mon. Who are you really?"

"I already told you. I guess that I'll have to show you. Ellie forwarded that request of yours to me, and I've decided to grant it." She made a strange gesture with her hand and pointed to Steve.

"What!" Steve saw something -- it looked like the sort of distortion that special effects people use to show an invisible force. It seemed to gather at this strange woman's fingertips then shoot across the distance between them and sink into his body. He felt a warmth at the point where it entered. A warmth that spread out through his body.

Then the changes began.

The corset melded into the bodysuit as his waist narrowed and his hips widened. His pelvis reformed adding to the feminine curves with a new roundness to both hips and ass. His body grew slender, shoulders narrowing, arms and legs losing their male muscles. The padding on his chest vanished as his own breasts formed, then grew to a magnificent 40 DD. The material that had held the padding reshaped from coarse cotton bindings to an elasticized nylon sports bra.

He felt an erection in his loins, but it seemed to be shrinking, not growing. Out of male instinct, he reached for it, but he found only the remnants of a penis and testicles as they rapidly reshaped into the labia and clitoris of a woman. He could feel things moving around inside him as a full set of female organs took shape within his body. At the same time, the special strapping that he had used to hold his former male equipment in place and give his crotch a more feminine appearance transformed into a pair of sheer nylon panties.

His face reshaped, loosing its male chin. His nose was smaller, though his eyes seemed to grow bigger due to the now expertly applied make-up he was now wearing. His lips grew more lush beneath his lipstick, and his cheekbones shifted, adding to the general changes in his features. His scalp itched, and he felt a weight pulling at his head. He felt for the wig and discovered that it was now his -- no, now her own hair, silky and shimmering down his back.

Finally, the costume reformed. The heels on the boots raised from the previous two inches to four. The material of the costume was no longer an inexpensive T-shirt cotton. It was now a durable synthetic and cotton mixture that could take the strongest wear and still keep its shape and flexibility.

Steve stretched and turned, amazed at how good this new body felt. Elsbeth smiled and thought how feline the gestures were. And, at the same time, how feminine.

Steve realized it, too. "You are Elsbeth," she said in amazement.

"And you are Catwoman. At least, to the end of the Convention."

"You mean that?"

"That is what you asked Ellie for, isn't it? I'm not about to permanently unleash a comic book master criminal on the real world."

"What about unleashing her here at the Con -- the Convention?"

"These are your friends, more or less, Steve. So I'm not going to worry as much. Any real theft, any permanent harm, and the spell ends immediately. But I've read a few of the more recent Catwoman comics. She's something of a 'Robin Hood' type these days. You'll find that you have all of her athletic abilities and reflexes. Use them to have a little harmless fun or to teach somebody a deserved lesson. Or you can just wander around the Con and enjoy that sleek body of hers."

"So the choice is mine?"

"Yes, just don't do anything I wouldn't do. Of course, since you've read those two stories about my husband and me, you know that such a restriction isn't very limiting."

"I guess not, and thanks." Steve was distracted now by the sensations of her new ultra-feminine body and a few ideas for a little mischief that had just popped into her head.

"Ellie said to say 'you're welcome,' Steve." With that, Elsbeth put her badge back on, turned, and headed back over to the dealers' tables. She was a big fan of Carl Barks and somebody had a bunch of old "Scrooge McDucks" that she wanted to take a look at.

Steve was due one last surprise. The spell would renew automatically every year for the duration of the convention -– provided he was attending. She expected that he would be and wondered how he'd react. It might be fun to come back next year just to see what happened.

Copyright Ellie Dauber 1999

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